Happy Halloween!!

In honor of this spooky autumn day I an going to share some fun facts that I found today about pumpkins.  
1. The only continent where pumpkins can't grow is Antarctica. No surprise there.
2.  Pumpkin flowers are edible. I think I'll add some to my next pumpkin pie.  
3. Pumpkins were once recommended for removing freckles and curing snake bites. No instructions on how to use the pumpkin were included with this statement. Do you rub pumpkin goo on a snake bite or throw a pumpkin at the snake?  While that last option might not cure the snake bite, it would feel empowering to smash that snake.
4. Eighty percent of the pumpkin supply in the U.S. is available in October?  Could that possibly have something to do with the natural growing cycle of pumpkins?
5.  The largest pumpkin ever grown weighed 1,140 pounds.  No info about how many pies were made from that pumpkin.  
And speaking of pies, my brother is pastor of a church that has a unique fund raiser each year.  They make and sell home-made, or actually church kitchen made, pie crusts. They are really good.  I've ordered 4 and at least 2 of them will be used for pumpkin pie.
And here's something I learned last year while mixing up pumpkin pie filling.  I had enough pie filling left over after baking 2 pies for another one so I froze the remaining filling in a zip loc bag.  Two months later I needed a pie so I thawed and baked the filling I had frozen in one of the church pie crusts (talk about lazy baking) and it tasted wonderful. Happy pumpkins, happy fall everyone.

It's Decision time.

I watched the televised debate this evening between Mike Braun, Joe Donnelly and Lucy Brenton, all running for US Senate.  I started watching the debate pretty sure who I will vote for but the more I listened, the more conflicted I became.  I hadn't given much thought to the Libertarian candidate but I must admit I was impressed with much of what she had to say.  It's not just because she's a woman or because we share the same first name (although I did note those things).  I would like to vote for her just to make a staements but I know I need to vote for the candidate I had already decided on.  It looks like it will be a tight race.  Interestingly, this was one of the better, more civil debates I have seen during this campaign, as opposed to the never ending commercials which spend all their time slamming the opponents.  I think the tone of the debate was set when all three candidates agreed to actually answer the questions asked without digressing.  They all did a pretty good job of it.  

Sheep and giraffe and princesses, oh my!

This evening First Pres held it's second annual children's Halloween festival.  Last year I participated by helping with set-up and running one of the games.  The game I oversaw involved pingpong balls being tossed into little red buckets.  It also involved lots of balls missing the buckets and bouncing all over the floor. After chasing bouncing balls for a little while last year I decided to change the rules of the game.  In addition to getting one piece of candy for trying and one for each ball they got in a bucket, they got an additional piece for picking up the balls.  This year our youth pastor was refering to it as the "Luci" and encouraging everyone to bribe the littles to pick up.  He also made sure each of us (we were a lot of senior citizen volunteers) had a chair so we weren't standing for the whole two hours.  All in all it was an easy evening of watching costumed children have a good time and take home lots of candy.  I enjoyed seeing the costumes. There were several princesses, a tiny incredible hulk, a little wooly sheep, a giraffe and a wonder woman among others.  All great fun and everything a children's Halloween party should be.  The only thing missing was bobbing for apples and that would have just made for a lot of soggy costumes.

They're getting closer

I mentioned a week or so ago that there is a crane on a barge in the river near the Spy Run  bridge over the St. Mary's River.  They have been busily clearing inderbrush along the banks of the river and now the stretch that I can see is quite bare along the stretch where Hall's Gas House and the Deck are located. except for a few large trees that they left standing.  I think this is all part of the ongoing effort to reinforce the banks and reduce runoff but it isn't very pretty.  Now I'm wondering (1) how will they get their equpment to my side of the bridge and (2) how much are they going to clear away?  There are actually two old half-dead cottonwoods that I expect will fall in the river sometime soon.  They can go, but there is also a lot of very pretty shrub and tree growth along both banks.  Honestly, I wish they would just leave my view of the riverbank alone. Ah well, time will tell. At least it's an interesting (if slow moving) show that I can tune into from time to time.

music at the Embassy

I attended a performance of the Fort Wayne Philharmonic at the Embassy Theater this evening.  It's hard to beat the combination of beautiful music and a beautiful setting.  The program will be broadcast on WBNI 94.1 FM on Thursday, November 8 at 7:00pm.  To be honest, I probably won't listen to it again.  I really enjoy going to concerts but I find that I enjoy the visuals as much as the music. I like to see the orchestra members perform.  This evening the piano was placed so that I could see the pianist play and that was amazing.  The special guest pianist was a young lady named Lise de la Salle.  She's from France in case the name didn't give you a clue. Not only was she an outstanding pianist she was wearing "the sexiest outfit I've ever seen at the Philharmonic" to quote the lady sitting next to me.  I will admit it isn't common to see a concert pianist wearing a bare mid-drift outfit. See what I mean?  You miss out on a lot if you don't see the visuals.

You can thank me later.

I like my apartment very much but it does have its flaws.  My least favorite feature is the electric heating system.  I do like the fact that each of the three major areas has its own heating unit so I can shut off the heat in rooms I'm not using.  What bothers me though is the fan noise especially in the livingroom unit.  It's just loud enough that, to hear TV over it, I have to turn up the TV volumn to a level I don't enjoy.  My other option, and the one I usually choose, is to turn off the heat while I'm watching TV.  I can bundle up in blankets and I really don't suffer, but sometimes I notice my nose getting cold.  We are having a rather chilly October right now and that got me thinking about the cold months ahead.  So today I did something about the situation.  I bought a small radiant heat space heater. I am happy to report that it has a nice even heat and a very quiet fan.  As I was bringing the heater into the building I met one of my favorite maintenance men here.  He saw what I was carrying and assured me it was a very good idea.  In fact he said many tenants use small space heaters and he predicts that it will save me money on my electric bill.  That sounds like a positive plus.  What I anticipate will really happen is that, now that I'm prepared for really cold weather, we will have a very mild winter.  You can tahnk me in April.

Chicken anyone?

Once a month, on the 4th Thursday, some other church ladies and I get together at First Pres to prepare a meal and feed people who live and/or work around the church.  Some live in adjusted rent apartments across the street while others are evidently homeless and a few work in the area.  They start coming in about 9:30am and we serve lunch at 11:30.  We serve good nutritious food which is generally well received but, once a year, in October we serve Kentucky Fried Chicken.  I'm not sure how the word spreads but we always have many more people eating when we serve chicken.  Today it was close to 100 people.  Many people had seconds, sone had third helpings and nothing was wasted.  The mashed potatoes rran out first, then the biscuits, then the gravy and coleslaw and finally the chicken.  Of course the cookies set out for dessert went in a flash.  One of the unexpectedly popular items was boxes.  KFC delivers their large orders in aluminum foil containers and these are brought in in very nice, sturdy boxes, about 18" x 24' x 12" deep, with attached lids,  Our order was contained in eight boxes and every box was claimed by the end of the morning. People also carried away the aluinum pans for recycling.  It was a bit like locusts cleaning out the place.  Then we played BINGO. I was the caller.  People get very excited about winning $1 prizes.  Much better odds than the mega-million lottery and it doesn't cost anything to play  All in all a very good day.

A day to plan for

Tomorrow is "World Pasta Day."  That's 'world' not 'whirled' as opposed to 'whirled peas' which everyone seems to find very desirable.  I though you should know now so you can start that spaghetti sauce simmering.  My mother made the best spaghetti sauce (mine is pretty close) and I remember it simmering all afternoon.  Yumm!!
In the meantime here's one more picture from the southwest to enjoy:

Hah! I bet you thought it was going to be another picture of rocks. It was snowing in Bryce Canyon.  I thought these trees were beautiful.

Now you see it, now you don't.

It's like magic, or my computer is messing with my mind, or both.  Here is one more picture from my recent trip to the great southwest, this one from the upper reaches of Zion National Park.  Yesterday I couldn't find these pictures at all, and now here they are.  So I'm going to test my luck and try one more.  

This is a view of the grand canyon, but you probably guessed that.  Wow, now I'm feeling so lucky that I wish I had bought a lotter ticket.  Ah well, there's always next week.

the Luci and Ricky show

A group of ex-teachers and other senior types gather at our church each Monday afternoon during the school year to do one-on-one tutoring with students from a local elementary school.  Last year I was paired with a third grader named Ricky and at the end of the year, much to my pleasure, he asked me if I could be his tutor again this year.  I was pleased to agree to this arrangement even though he did his best to make me feel ancient last year.  When I mentioned at our first meeting that it was fun that we were paired together like  "Lucy and Ricky"  he looked at me blankly.  He had never heard of the old "I Love Lucy" show.  Later in the year he gently informed me that I looked about 100 years old.  Despite these blows to my ego, I was very happy to see Ricky this afternoon.  We had a good time and I learned something that had not come out last year.  He was filling out a form with information about himself and answered the question about what he wants to be when he grows up by saying he wants to own a restaurant.  I think this is an interesting choice for a 9 year old. 

Trying again - 

Ok, not sure why this worked this time.  I've been pushing lots of buttons and here is one picture.  This is a view from the upper levels of Zion National Park.  I will try to share more tomorrow.

I have been trying to download pictures from my recent trip.  This has always worked before, same camera, same connector, but when I try to copy a picture to this post it transforms into a series of meaningless letters and numbers and other symbols (at least meaningless to me). I shall continue to try to figure out what weirdness is going on here.  Stay tuned. Perhaps tomorrow I will have pictures.  It really was quite a beautiful trip.

It was a lovely day

Today is my daughter and son-in-law's 10th anniversary and to celebrate they renewed their wedding vows.  This is a second marriage for each of them and it appears to be working well.  Not only is my son-in-law a great husband he is also a wonderful father to my grandchildren.  During the ceremony today, he made promises to my grandchildren as well as to my daughter.  I didn't cry but I must admit I got a little teary as my now 6ft 2inch tall 17 year old grandson escorted his mother down the aisle while my almost 16 year old model thin granddaughter served as maid of honor.  Their first wedding, while very nice, was much less formal and occured at the courthouse, so I think it felt good to them to have this ceremony in the chapel at our church.  
After the ceremony we all (there were 30 in the party) went to Club Soda for a reception dinner, yummm!! The appetizers included bacon-wrapped scallops, the steak I had was very good (I brought enough home for another meal) and the cake choices were raspberry or carrot.  I had carrot and it was excellent. We finished everything off with a champagne toast.  It was a lovely day.

Binge watching

I've been curious about the phenomenon called "binge watching." I understand the concept.  People can access a whole multi-year series of episodes on Netflix or some other site of their particular favorite show. As I say, I understand the concept but I really couldn't imagine sitting for hours watchng TV.  That is, until I recently checked out two years of "Doc Martin" episodes from our wonderful local library. If it weren't for absolutely needing sleep I probably would be watching all night.  So now I will leave you wondering, with two episodes left, will she or won't she go to bed?

Christmas Catalogs

I think the lady who lived in this apartment before me did all her shopping through catalogs.  I know on line buying is the way to go these days but I think for her it was catalogs. Over the three years I've lived here I've received quite an amazing variety. This week alone I've received six, all with Christmas themes and that got me thinking about the Christmas catalogs that used to come in the mail when I was a child.  Now those were catalogs!  Nice and thick and full of marvelous things to long for.  They were even called wish books. My cousin and my brothers and I spent hours pouring over those colorful, glossy pages.  Sears, Montgomery Ward and J.C. Penneys had everything you could wish for.  Sadly the catalogs that come to me these days have lots of Christmas decorating ideas and clothes for the season but none of the really fun stuff. Where are the cap guns in Roy Rogers holsters, the doll houses complete with a tiny family, the puzzles and games that came in boxes, the baby dolls?  Last year I spent some time with a 10-year-old great nephew slowly paging through a Lego catalog and enjoying an earnest discussion about which kits would be the most fun to put together. It was fun to see a child enjoying a catalog.  I do expect I'll be getting a great long wish list from him sometime soon.  I guess the flip side of being a child wishing for marvelous things is to be an adult and be able to grant at least a few of those wishes. Remembering is fun but living in the now is better.

A Technology treat....

...and a technological problem.  On Sunday I bought a new purse at Kohl's.  I know, I know, the last thing in the world that I need is another pirse, but I liked the color and the size, it was on sale and it came with an interesting extra.  The extra is a small (credit card sized) chargeable battery that you can carry with you and have handy if you need to recharge your phone.  I seldom have a problem with my phone battery but this little battery might come in handy when I travel.  Unhappily, my nifty new purse also came with a technological trap.  When I started to clip off price and promo tags, I realized that the anti-theft device that was supposed to have been removed when I bought the purse was still attached. So I went back to Kohl's to get it removed. I walked into the store, setting off the alarm, walked over to the counter and explained my problem. Of course I had my receipt with me. The charming young lady at the counter said "Huh, I wonder how that happened?"  I didn't have an answer for her but, since this actually happened to me once before at Kohl's when I bought a rain jacket, I suspect it has something to do with the fact that old ladies are basically invisible.  

"Believe It or Not"

When I was a child, my brother and I used to love paging through a fat book in our parents' bookcase called "Ripley's Believe It or Not."  We would marvel at people with stramgly distorted lips and ear lobes and be awed by amazing records that had been set and animal antics that were hard to believe.
Now I am engaged in my own real life Believe It or Not situation.  The leaves are falling off the locust tree outside my window and I can finally see that the white plastic grocery bag which I first spied last winter is still hanging on a branch of the tree.  Based on my personal observation, that bag has been snagged on the locust tree since at least last February.  Nine months and it's still hanging in there.  So now I really need to see how long it can last.  My real question is, if that bag is so tough how come a sharp box corner can split the one in which I'm carrying my groceries?

Bryce Canyon

Still no pictures but one chilly memory to share about Bryce Canyon.  Bryce Canyon is famous for its hoodoos - tall skinny stacks of rock eroded by rain and wind into a forest of stone towers. It was fun to see them, even snow capped.  The day we toured Bryce it was 40 degrees, blowing and snowing. I took pictures of snow covered evergreens that reminded me of scenes I saw in Washington State last winter.  We didn't do the long hikes because the trails were slick with a nasty rain-snow mix.  Our chilly situation was easy to take though.  We could always get back on our warm bus.  The people I felt sorry for were a group of eleven or twelve traveling through the canyon on motorcycles.  I have never seen a more miserable looking group.  The weather was a surprise to all of us, but a real bummer to them.  

I'm back.

I've just returned from a week long trip "out west" to enjoy some of the natural wonders of our beautiful country.  I also had time to play a little Blackjack - fun.  We (I was with a tour group) visited four sites; the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Valley Of Fire and Zion National Park.  I hope to have some pictures to show by tomorrow but photos never do the scenes justice.  All of the parks were beautiful but Zion was my favorite.  It was stunning with so many different rock formations and amazing landscapes.  Interestingly, during my morning devotion today I read this quote "The mighty one, God the LORD, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth." Psalm 50: 1-2. I think that the Methodist preacher / explorer who named Zion and many of the natural features in it, like Pipe Organ and Angels' Throne, must have been thinking of this Bible passage. The "perfection of beauty" really describes it.

This is not too surprising.

Another report from my trustworthy TV news reporters.  The five most stressed states in the US are New Jersey, New York, California, Georgia and Florida.  If you think about it, it's really not too surprising that people living in these states are streesed.  Think of the natural disasters just during the last year.  We've seen lots of storms and flooding along the east coast and wildly distructive fires on the west coast. I've suspected that middle America is really the best place to live and this confirms it. But just in case I'm wrong, I'm going traveling to some other states next week.  I'll check out the stress levels there and report back in a week.

I think I already knew this.

I heard the results of this study on TV this morning.  After some study, scientists have discovered that hugging is good for you, and it feels good too.  They did stress that they were talking about 'consensual hugging.'  Hugging calms you, relieves stress and generally makes both people feel good.  I'm assuming here that they studied two-people hugs as opposed to group hugs. I am blessed with a family full of good huggers so the results of this study were not very surprising.  In fact, I really doubt if it needed a study to prove that hugs are a good thing. Ask any three year old with a boo-boo or, for that matter, any adult who's feeling stressed. Hug on America!!

were you alerted?

I received an interesting text alert today.  Happily it was just a test, but now, I understand, the entire nation (or at least everyone with a cell phone, so essentially the entire nation) can be notified instantly of a national emergency.  This seems like a good idea, although if a missle was about to blow up Fort Wayne, I'm not sure I would want advanced notice. The other hazard I heard mentioned was a tsunami but I don't think that's a likely threat in Indiana.  Although it might be interesting to see a wall of water rolling down the St. Mary's River. What could I do about it? I think I might prefer to die in ignorant bliss.  I did think it was interesting that, since I had my phone on vibrate, I didn't hear the alert.  I just found it on the screen when I checked for messages after a meeting.  Since I often have my phone on vibrate I guess I don't really need to worry. I'll never know what hit me.  I don't think I have a problem with this new technology but it does seem a little "big brother"ish. 

more excitement on the river

I've mentioned the white crane that I see on the river this time of year.  She or he is still here, high-stepping along the shallow edge of the river.  Very pretty, very elegant, but today I saw a different kind of crane on the river.  I'm not actually sure if 'crane' is the correct term for this piece of equipment.  It really looked to me like a steam shovel except for having a 'claw' instead of a scoop at the end of its long jointed arm.  There it sat, when I walked out on my balcony this morning, on a large flat raft or barge (about 30 x 30 feet) with another smaller flat barge pulled up beside.  This is all part of the ongoing process of clearing a lot of dead wood and brush from along the riverbanks but it was my first sight of the process. I was in and out quite a bit today so I only actually got to see the big claw picking up logs and brush and depositing the debris in a big bin on the smaller barge once.  I was amused to notice that every time I walked out to check on its progress, it would be in a different position.  Still just west of the Spy Run bridge but back and forth on opposite sides of the river.  I finally got to see the power that moved it - a little flat bottom motor boat with upright pushing bars attached to the front. All very interesting but I'm left with two concerns. 1. What if it sinks in the river? Will it be like Mike Mulligan's steam shovel that ended up stuck in the basement of the new court house?  Only in this case, instead of becoming a furnace, would this crane become a home for fish and geese?  
My other concern is will it fit under the bridge to get to my side? Or will they need to take it up, out of the river, over the road and down the bank across from my apartment.  I hope I'm around to see that process. Have I mentioned before that I'm easily entertained?  

Another thing I will never do

I've mentioned before that there are some things that I will never do.  Sky diving and bungee jumping are high on my list.  But here's a new one:  Even if I win a humungous amount in a lottery (which isn't too likely because I seldom play the lottery) I will never spend $17,000,000.00 on a pair of shoes.  I don't care if they are gold plated and diamond studded (both true, as seen on TV) the heels were so high  - 6 inches? - that if I tried to walk in them I would fall off and break some part of me. If anyone would like to gift me with $17 million to test my resolve, I will accept your challenge.